If I Sell Software, Should I Require Customers To Activate The Product Online Before They Can Use It (Post-Free Trial Period)?

I’ve been involved with a software product in the past that used online activation. It had pluses and minuses.

It made it harder for users to do sketchy things in general with the product in terms of usage and purchasing/sharing, and let us track more of what they were actually doing with our software. When a customer complained about something and requested a refund, we could always tell if the customer had tried activating on countless PCs before contacting us so we had an idea of how honest they might have been being before we responded to their complaint or refund request. And we were able to have a policy that refunds were an option when no activation occurred but not when the user already activated (other than in special situations where a customer was particularly upset for a legitimate reason) since we had no way to stop them from using the product indefinitely once they activated.